


Auctioned

by hale_marie



Category: Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV)
Genre: 90s Zelda is a lesbian, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/F, dinner date, fight me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-10-09 06:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17401376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hale_marie/pseuds/hale_marie
Summary: Based on S6Ep16 of Sabrina the Teenage Witch where Hilda tries to auction Zelda off for a benefit. Originally, Zelda doesn't get a single bid, so I fixed that shit up. Zelda deserves better than that. Many thanks to the demons in the Madam Spellman Discord server. <3 We truly are doing the Dark Lord's work.





	1. Chapter 1

“But first let me say congratulations in advance to the lucky man who forks over a boatload of cash for an unsurpassed evening of intellectual ecstasy with this red-hot renaissance woman,” Zelda says to the room with a cheeky grin. She twirls around, and when she stops, she pushes an older gentleman toward the table with her picture. With her intellectual prowess spelled out neatly in her bio, she’s sure that anyone would pay lots of money to go on a date with her.

She certainly needs to get laid. Not that it’s a small hope of hers for an auctioned date. Not at all.

When she finally has the bright idea that she could be too intimidating for potential auctioneers, she walks outside to enjoy the cool night air. She briefly wonders if maybe her dress is a little too low cut, but shakes it off as she catches her reflection in a window. By the time she reaches the courtyard just outside the library, the full moon is shining brightly and the stars twinkle alongside it. Zelda breathes in and enjoys the scent of flowers she can’t see in the relative darkness.

She turns around to look back into the cafeteria and is surprised to see that there’s nobody standing at her table. She lets out an annoyed huff and looks impatiently at the clock. There’s till a good chunk of time left before it’s over, so she won’t give up hope that maybe Prince Charming is just biding his time until the end to sweep her off her feet.

In the cafeteria, however, Hilda is getting nervous.

**“** Harvey, people are fighting like crazy over your hockey sticks, but no one has bid on Zelda!”

Harvey has the decency to keep his face passive. “That’s because my hockey sticks didn’t brag about how brilliant and beautiful they are.” He shrugs and holds out his tray to a hand grabbing at some snacks.

**“** But Zelda _is_ brilliant and beautiful. I’ve got to be able to squeeze some cash out of that somehow.”

Hilda thinks a moment and yells out, “Yo! Check out this table. Who will be the lucky man to snap up the most valuable prize here?”

A man comes up to bid on some Scottish cookies. Hilda scoffs. If she doesn’t find a date for Zelda, she’ll be crushed, and Hilda won’t have anything to show for putting her sister up for auction. She looks at the watch on her wrist and sighs. “We only have an hour and a half left, Harvey. Do you think someone will bid on her?”

When she turns, Harvey is across the room handing out more of whatever to bidders, and she’s stuck with this dilemma. If she doesn’t figure something out soon, it’ll be a long night.

 

When Zelda comes back in, she’s feeling giddy and practically bounces her way over to Hilda. “So how many people are clamoring over the table to get a chance to take me to dinner?” She flips a strand of hair back.

Hilda has to admit that her sister is more confident than she should be considering her heart is about to break. She can’t fin the heart to say anything and stutters instead. “I..I…”

Zelda spies the table and raises an eyebrow at seeing nobody at the table. Maybe someone just bid and left? She walks over and tries to ignore a growing knot in her stomach. By the time she reaches it, it’s clear that her sheet is still empty save for a couple of joke names, and Zelda’s heart skips a beat. Nobody bid on her.

“Nobody wants to date me,” Zelda says, and Hilda can’t help but feel sorry for her sister when she sees her shoulders drop.

“No, Zelly,” she tries, but Zelda cuts her off with a raised hand.

Zelda straightens back up and says, “I understand.”

It’s clear as day to Hilda that Zelda does not understand, and she wishes more than anything that she could take that pain away. Her attempts to pay someone to take her out have all failed, and with ten minutes left in the auction, she’s not sure there’s any hope for a bid. She briefly considers paying for a lunch date with Zelda herself, but that would do nothing for her sister’s shattered spirits.

Zelda leaves the room, feeling broken. She bites her cheek to avoid a sob escaping, but by the time she zaps herself into her bedroom, the tears flow freely.

She lies on her bed for a while, running scenarios in her head as alternatives to what could have happened tonight. It helps when her breathing finally slows and she can sit up. Zelda zaps herself into some more comfortable clothes and starts to make her way to the kitchen for a snack because her stomach is grumbling.

Upon entering the kitchen, Hilda comes crashing through the door yelling out her name. “Zelly! Zelly!”

“What’s the reason for your screaming this late at night. Honestly, Hilda, you’d think we don’t have neighbors.”

Hilda didn’t stop though and slammed a piece of paper onto the table, ignoring the scandalized look her sister was sending her way. “Zelly,” she repeats, now out of breath. “Read it!”

Zelda stares for a moment, but when Hilda starts to push her towards the paper, she rolls her eyes and accepts her fate. She picks up the paper and squints at it before she realizes she doesn’t have her reading glasses. Hilda seems to have the same thought, and snaps her fingers to magic them onto her sister’s face. Zelda nods and turns back to the paper.

“Is this real?” Zelda asks quietly.

Hilda nods with renewed enthusiasm. “Isn’t it great?”

“But—but who?”

Hilda shrugs. “Some woman dressed in the nicest suit came in five minutes to close, wrote that on your sheet, gave me a check, and took your bio off the table! She didn’t even say a word.”

Zelda pulled out a chair and sat down in it just before her legs gave out. “But five thousand dollars? That’s so much. Am I even worth that much money?”

She slides her glasses on top of her head and pushes the paper across the table. Hilda comes over and puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls the paper with that frightening amount of money closer.

“Zelly, you are worth this and more.”

“With a woman?”

“What about a woman?” Sabrina has just appeared in the kitchen, looking through the fridge.

“Young lady, what are you doing?”

The youngest witch turns around with a water bottle in hand. “Um, Miles ate all our food, so I’m here looking for provisions. What are you guys doing? Why does Aunt Zelda look like she might faint?”

Salem jumps onto the counter before anyone can tell him not to. “Some lady bid five thousand big ones to go out to dinner with your aunt.”

Sabrina drops her water bottle in the sink, and silverware clinks loudly at the disturbance. “Wait. You’re going on a date? But you’re old as balls!”

Zelda stands up in shock. “Sabrina!” Her face starts to turn red. “I find that very offensive!”

Salem is already rolling on the counter, laughing, and when Zelda turns to see Hilda trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

“I think it’s great, Zelly, and she gave me this to give to you.” Hilda pulls out a card.

_Friday night. 7pm. Be ready._

Zelda reads it and raises an eyebrow. “She didn’t even tell you her name?”

Hilda shakes her head, but heads toward the stairs. “Nope, but I’m beat from raising so much money, so I’m off to bed. Ta ta!”

Zelda stands in the kitchen, still confused about what just happened.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for magical shenanigans. The smut is not here yet.

Thursday night, Hilda is sitting at the kitchen table and rolling her eyes at Zelda pacing around. “Zelly, you’ll wear a hole in the floor. Cut it out! You’ll be fine.”

The older sister didn’t stop but shot Hilda an exasperated look when she turned around again. “I’ve never been on a date with a woman before. What if she doesn’t like me?”

Hilda cocks her head to the side. “Are you kidding? Sister, you are a catch! Anyone would be lucky to date you, and if this woman doesn’t like you, then it’s just a nice dinner with a donor. We made money for charity, and that’s a _good_ thing.”

Zelda stopped then and looked at her sister. “You’re absolutely right, Hilda!”

Hilda gives a self-satisfied pat on her own back and stands up. “Darn right, Zelly! Now go do something that doesn’t involve pacing the kitchen.” She picks up the newspaper and heads off, toward the living room, Zelda thinks.

Well, she could always clean something.

So she does.

It starts with the laundry. Zelda has a brief thought that maybe she’s gone too far with the cleaning when she starts reorganizing closets in the house. From there it turns into, “Hilda, we’re going to have a garage sale,” and she turns the living room into piles labeled ‘keep’ and ‘toss’ and ‘sell’. When she zaps the piles into appropriate boxes, then she looks around to see what else could be done. She catches a glance of the clock that doesn’t work and decided to fix it.

Hilda comes back from shopping a while later with Sabrina and drops all of the bags she’s holding and exclaims, “Merlin, Zelda, what are you doing!?”

Zelda does not look up, but a warlock in indigo robes appears with a puff of smoke, and she greets the man with, “Hi, Merlin.”

“Bye, Merlin,” Sabrina and Hilda say together, but Sabrina waves him away and tries to blow the smoke away from her face.

“Aunt Zelda, are you okay?” Sabrina asks, crouching down to inspect whatever it is Zelda has on the floor.

Her hands are covered in black, and there are springs and motors and clock parts spread around her. One bounces off of the part Zelda currently has in her hands and rolls under the couch.

“I’m fine, you two. I’m just fixing this clock!” Zelda bashes a part on the floor before twisting it into place in the clock mechanics.

Hilda squints down at her sister. “With parts from the dryer? Zelda, you’re going crazy.”

“Though Zelda’s heart may race and race, put these parts back in their place!”

Sabrina’s finger shoots a burst of magic, and everything begins to tidy itself up. They can hear the dryer parts clanging back into place, and the clock sticks itself back to the wall as the last of the spell wears off. “Did you really use the dryer to fix a clock?” Sabrina asks, her eyes wide. “You sure you’re okay?”

Zelda takes Hilda’s hand and rises from the floor. “I’m fine, Sabrina, really. I just wanted to fix the clock.”

Hilda shakes her head. “Couldn’t you have just baked some cookies or something? Why did you have to destroy the dryer?”

“The parts I needed were in there! I almost had it. I would have fixed it if you hadn’t come home,” Zelda whines childishly. She looks sadly at the clock.

Hilda and Sabrina share a look of bewilderment. Sabrina shrugs and walks to the kitchen with her bags of shopping.

“I think you’re freaking out, Zelly. Go take a bath or something. Anything that keeps you from taking apart the _house_!” Hilda admonishes, and makes her way around Zelda to join her niece in the kitchen.

The older sister stands in the living room feeling slightly lost. Rest? Calm down? Zelda isn’t even sure she knows what that means, but latches onto her sister’s suggestion to bake some cookies. Surely, it can’t be that much of a disaster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No sooner can Zelda think cookies wouldn’t turn disastrous than some accidental magic causes them to multiply uncontrollably and spill over the counter and onto the floor. With her magic on the fritz, she calls out for help, and it comes in the form of Salem, who rushes to eat any cookie left on the floor.

“Salem, that’s not actually helping anything.”

All she gets is a muffled response from around the cookies shoved into his mouth, and she huffs angrily at him.

“Hilda! Sabrina! Help!” Zelda tries to catch cookies in bowls and containers pulled at random from cabinets and cupboards. By the time she can hear footsteps loud enough that she’d normally yell at the offender, she’s desperate.

Hilda comes into view with a “Holy Merlin, Zelda!”

The warlock clad in purple robes this time poofs into the kitchen.

“ _Not you, Merlin!_ ” the sisters yell, and Hilda sends him away with another poof.

Their niece slides into view a moment later with eyebrows nearly meeting her hairline. “What the heck is going on in here?”

“I can’t make them stop!” Zelda cries and reaches for another container.

“Uh, magic?” Sabrina asks and picks up Salem, whose belly is full and firm from the cookies he’s eaten. She takes a half-eaten cookie out of his mouth, to which he whines loudly.

Zelda looks terrified, but as she’s filled another bowl with cookies a bang fills the room with sound. Everything stops. Hilda looks furious and slaps the bowl out of her sister’s hands before grabbing her arm. “Hilda, that hurts!”

“Well it’s gonna hurt a lot more if you don’t go to your room and not come out until tomorrow. We can’t have you blowing up the kitchen with baked goods!” Hilda says ‘baked goods’ with gritted teeth, and Zelda feels a trickle of fear creep down her spine. It’s been a long time since Hilda was this angry.

Her sister shoves her in the direction of the stairs and gives a dramatic gesture. “Go on!”

Zelda rolls her eyes. “This hardly seems necessary Hilda,” she tries to bargain, but Hilda gives her a dark look.

She catches a glimpse of the kitchen, covered in chocolate chip goodness and Sabrina trying to hold the cat back from explosion. She resigns herself to her fate and hangs her head as she turns to go to her bedroom.

“Come down here before tomorrow morning and you’ll sleep for the next thousand years. Don’t tempt me, sister,” Hilda warns, and watches with satisfaction as Zelda climbs the stairs.

Sabrina finally lets go of a squirming Salem, and he fall to the floor with a hard thump. He looks back up at her with an angry cat face, but he saunters off in the direction of the living room, satisfied with the snack he’ll be burping up later. “He’s lactose intolerant. I hope he doesn’t stink up the house,” Sabrina says offhandedly as she grabs a broom to clean up the mess on the floor.

Hilda grabs a cookie off of the counter and takes a tentative bite. “Mmm, this is good! I have to give it to my sister: even with a cloning spell, these cookies are _delicious_!”


	3. Chapter 3

Zelda finds herself smoothing down the front of a silky black dress that Sabrina and Hilda helped her pick out. As she looks over her figure in the mirror, she internally picks apart her flaws. There are wrinkles forming near her mouth. Laughter lines, her mom always called them. Zelda does like to laugh, but she thinks the wrinkles make her look old, and at a little over six centuries of life, she doesn’t like to be reminded. She scrubs a small spot of lipstick off her top tooth and sighs. What if this date doesn’t like her?

She hears the doorbell ring, and excited “Aunt Zelda!” and some other scurrying downstairs.

“Now or never, Zelda,” she tells herself quietly and starts to make her way down the steps. Descending, she hears a smooth, ringing voice, presumably her date. She wonders where they’ll go. There’s a fancy new Italian restaurant in Greendale she’s been wanting to try lately.

When she reaches the bottom, Salem, Hilda, and Sabrina are talking to a brunette. It’s only when she gets to the bottom that the woman’s face comes into view, and the first thing Zelda sees are piercing blue eyes. Dark tresses fall in waves around cutting cheekbones, and Zelda feels her face contort into shock. The bright blues meet Zelda’s own, and she can’t help but gasp at how intensely they look at her.

“You must be Zelda,” the woman speaks. She sounds a touch darker than honey, but the words seem to melt out of her mouth. Her lips curl into a smile as she extends a hand, and Zelda is so dumbstruck that she has to be puppeted by Hilda into shaking the other woman’s hand.

“So soft,” Zelda whispers, feeling the hand enclosed in her own, and much to her horror, the other woman raises an amused eyebrow.

“Mary, dear. Now we must get going because these reservations won’t last if we’re late!”

The other woman raises the hand not already holding Zelda’s and she feels rush of magic across her skin. She blinks, and they’re standing in what looks like a restaurant dressed in shades of blush and rose. Iridescent flowers Zelda can’t name bloom on the ceiling, and the euphoric smell of books and potions invades her nostrils.

“This is my favorite spot in the galaxy. Welcome to Venus!” Mary twirls around, and Zelda notices the other woman’s dress for the first time. Well, she sees the dark pink against pale skin and follows the plunging neckline down, and with a sudden dry mouth, Zelda plays with a bracelet.

A waiter comes to take them to a seat facing the cosmos, and Zelda can hardly think about how beautiful the meteor shower outside is. A particularly large meteor whizzes past, momentarily taking Zelda’s eyes away from her stunning date.

She busies herself with opening a napkin. “I apologize for my absentmindedness, tonight, Mary. I’ve never been on a date like this before.”

Mary quirks an eyebrow and takes a sip of water. “Oh, pish posh. Never mind that. You look as stunning tonight as you did at the auction.” She shifts in her seat, and through the table, Zelda can see her cross her legs. Zelda quickly picks up her own water to avoid the stutter she knew would come. She takes a single gulp of water and feels it make a painful way down her throat. It does nothing to quell the uneasiness in her stomach as she watches Mary set her glass down on the table with a small clink and slowly slide the same hand over to where her own played with a paper coaster.

Meteors pass by the windows aplenty, but Zelda is staring into a bright ocean abyss and feeling a keen loss for words. She feels trapped in herself, like this woman put a spell on her. Mary slowly moves her thumb over the back of Zelda’s, and the latter woman jumps slightly at the electrifying touch. Literally.

“Oh my. Sorry, Mary. I didn’t mean to shock you,” Zelda finally says and pulls her hand away. She wrongs her hands together in her lap as the waiter comes around to ask for orders.

Order? Zelda feels a moment of panic as she realizes she forgot to look at the menu. She registers Mary’s voice and what sounds like her ordering two entrees, and the panic begins to ebb away. She feels the sensation in her lower abdomen and pinches herself. This is no time for _that_ , Zelda thinks to herself. No use getting carried away on an auction date.

The waiter walks away after having zapped their water glasses full again. Zelda takes a deep, steadying breath. “So, Mary, tell me about yourself. What do you do?”

Mary’s eyes bore into Zelda. She adjusts the bracelet on her wrist before answering. “I teach,” she replies simply.

“Oh? What to you teach, if I may ask?” Zelda presses gently.

“I teach a spellcasting course at the Other Realm University, and I teach English to mortals on Earth,” Mary replies as if it wouldn’t be a fascinating subject for Zelda to talk about.

Zelda feels herself relaxing now and leans back in her seat a little. “Amazing! I can only teach physics to university students on Earth. I never got my teaching degree from ORU. What’s it like teaching at ORU? I can only imagine what witching students get up to.”

Food arrives as the women chat, and Zelda loosens up after a glass of deep pink wine that’s “ _verrry good_ ”, she puts it. Before she can even realize it, her plate is nearly finished, and they’re running out of quiet as the restaurant begins to pick up for the night. She understands the need for the reservations now.

“Is it getting a bit loud in here?” Zelda asks no sooner than a couple is crashing down onto a nearby table in a heated tongue-battling session.

Mary smiles at her dinner companion. “Ah, the allure of young love. I think a couple of someones had a bit too much ‘Love Potion Three’.”

Zelda looks at Mary quizzically. “What?”

“It’s the newest drink here, dear. They just started coming up with these mixed drinks. But if that’s what it does to the patrons, I can imagine ‘Love Potion Four’ will be on its way to the bar very soon.” Mary smirks at the wait staff trying to pry the young couple apart. “But to answer your question, dear, yes, we should get going.”

Mary takes a card out of her purse and zaps it over to an attendant at the register who nods in acknowledgement. As she stands up, Zelda’s gaze in transfixed on long legs and she feels heat pooling low in her body. Mary moves to magic them somewhere else, and Zelda knows for certain that she’s going to be _very_ lucky tonight. A last smell of books hits her senses before the view of the restaurant leaves her.


End file.
